Many works to which heat treatment is applied contain organic matters, for example, tar or pitch contained in carbon powder, binder used for powder metallurgy, or process oil which attaches to a machine processed article. Conventionally, the organic matters contained in the above-mentioned works has been removed during a heat-up process in an atmosphere furnace or a vacuum furnace. A trap has been to trap vapor with the vapor coagulated by means of its cooling surface.
However, when a work is heated in an ordinary atmosphere furnace, organic matters evaporate from the work and attaches to the inside of the furnace, thereby to cause some problems such as deteriorating the material of the furnace, short-circuiting electrodes, or complicating cleaning or maintenance. As a further problem, if organic matters have adhered to the material of the furnace as mentioned above, when next time heat treatment is conducted in the same furnace, the organic matters evaporate and may be impregnated into the work, thereby to cause a trouble of deteriorating the quality of the products. In addition, if the furnace evacuates simply through the evacuation duct, a lot of organic vapors contained in the exhaust gas may stop up the trap, or halt or break down the pump because the organic matters go into the pump and coagulate there. Further, the organic matters which are evacuated out of the furnace pollute the environment.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a heat treatment device which is clean in every aspect and which makes it possible to remove the organic matters out of the work appropriately and to heat treat the work as well as to facilitate the maintenance.